The Land of the Hibiscus Blossom
James Hume Nisbet (1888)
Country of origin: Australia
Available texts by the same author here
VI. The "Sunflower."
NIGGEREE feels a good deal better this morning; one of the peculiarities of the fever he is slowly fighting down is that one day you feel as if it had left entirely, and rise without a trace of the helpless lassitude or ague which seems to be devouring your flesh and bones; then, as you are joking upon the subject, and wondering that you could ever feel so low-spirited, the pluck flies from you, and you sink back sick and faint, or ice-cold and shaking, till every bone rattles, while the perspiration pours like rain from you. No one can tell exactly when he has got rid of it, or when it has seized upon him; a strong, burly man in less than a week may be reduced to skin and bone.Last night Niggeree could not do more than sip his grog, and for a week before that he had tasted neither food or drink, but to-day, as he springs lightly from his close cabin, when he expected to crawl, to greet that blushing dawn, he finds himself gifted with an appetite both for food and drink, drink particularly, and nothing in the locker to satisfy the tardy craving.
"Confound it all," mutters the Greek, as he prepared to pull off his shirt so as to enjoy his morning ablutions, "if I only had been like this last night ashore, I could have enjoyed myself and no mistake."
As he doffed his garment, a sallow, hollow and high-cheeked Malay sailor came over to him from the bows with a bucket and line, which he tossed over the side, bringing it up full, and emptying it with a sluugh over his skipper, who stood with bent head and back towards the sailor to receive this primitive shower-bath. Again and again he drew up the bucket filled, and poured it over, until Niggeree cried, "enough," after which he joined the other Malay, and went on with their morning work of swabbing the deck.
As it is impossible to take a plunge in these waters on account of the sharks, this is the only plan left to those who cannot, like Joe, dispense with cold water.
"What you have for breakfast this morning, boss?" inquired the Chinaman who did duty as cook on board the Sunflower,--this Niggeree called his little vessel,--approaching his master, who was diligently drying himself.
"No need getting anything for me, I'll go aboard the Thunder and feed."
"All right, boss," and John returned to his post beside the little stove which stood on the deck and served for a galley.
If Niggeree, the Greek master of the Sunflower, appeared to be a weak and undersized man when crouching under the candle-light, a very different figure stood out against the soft grey background of this morning sky. By this time he had attired himself in his striped cotton shirt and white duck pants, and sat on the edge of the water-cask while he slowly filled his black clay pipe with the strongest of negrohead; his black, close-set eyes now looked sharp and bright enough, as he gazed on the shore; a low, square brow, and head well thatched with close-cropped jet-black hair. Not having shaved for the past few days, his chin and upper lip were grizzly and covered with strong dark stubble; a massive chin, with lips thin and firm-clenched, and when he smiled, as he often did, at some idea crossing his mind, it gave him the appearance of a convict smiling upon his jailor. Once he laughed, and muttered something to himself, and then, when his mouth opened, it disclosed teeth jet-black, and almost worn to stumps, which, with the blood--coloured gums and lips, told of the lime and betel chewer. His manner was quiet and sedate, even when alone, and he never raised his voice, even when giving an order, but his boys seemed to be on the alert to bear it as soon as it was uttered. He had a massive neck and square shoulders, with large arms and legs which made the pants seem to be tight. Since the night before he seemed to have expanded twice his size, and as the risen sun kissed him on the cheeks and neck with the same utter want of distinction as he had touched the satiny shoulders of Queen Ine, there was no shade of difference between his colour and that of the bare--chested Malay who was working near to him, only by some instinct one felt that the tawny tint of the one was imparted by the sun, and the other was the gift of ages.
"Fetch round the dingey, Jake," he softly said, and the Malay straightway left his task of polishing the brasswork, and hastened to obey, while Niggeree, with his pipe now filled, struck a match, which he held sailor-fashion in the hollow of his hand against the wind, and having lit, puffed away seriously, looking, as he sat there with bare arms, legs, and chest, and with head covered with a strip of turkey red cloth, not a bad ideal of a ruthless pirate.
His vessel, like himself, lay on the waters quietly, yet as if watchful; the hull low and painted green, sharp as a yacht, and about as trim, differing only from the other craft lying around by its rakish look, it being the swiftest sailor, evidently built more for speed than carrying, a quality which before now Niggeree had found very useful.
In these little schooners, not bigger than ordinary fishing-smacks, and much less than some of the deep-sea herring-boats, traders took their dangerous journeys over the rough waves of the Papuan Gulf; drawing little water, they served best for those narrow passages and shoaly patches of the inside reefs. A deck covered the hold, extending from end to end almost, with the exception of the three or four feet where the berth of the skipper was apportioned off. An awning was raised over part of the mid-ships where, on hot and dry nights, all slept. The berth was used only in wet weather; and when it was raining the crew slept in the hold if it was not over-full. The crew was mostly composed of South Sea Islanders, Malay, or China boys, with the one white man to guide and control them, so that murder was not so much to be wondered at as the faithful adherence of these coloured men to their white master; and, considering the hourly risks ran from natives and other dangers, treachery was rather a phenomenon; and if at times these brave traders were not over scrupulous in their means of attaining their end, still they were, as a rule, easy to please, not hard task-masters, and, without exception, utterly regardless of death.
Joe, in his own coarse way, fed and petted his island employés well, perhaps finding it to his own interest to indulge them as much as possible, while, if punishment had to be inflicted, he left it to his wife or the king to do as they thought best; from motives of selfishness, perhaps, he forbade them intoxicating drink, and never interfered with the teachings or influence of the native teachers, so that as much concord and civilization swayed this island, as on most others subject to the softening influence of the missionary.
With Niggeree, who hitherto had no abiding-place, but traded from station to station, staying a month or two on an island, where he generally ruled recklessly, marrying gaily the most important female of that part and leaving behind him an aroma of terror and respect, the other traders found grave fault. As Collins said, he was too hasty with his Winchester and cutlass, but withal, brave as a lion. He seemed to regard neither God nor man; he had gone to parts as yet unopened to the explorer or missionary, where treachery and man-eating are constantly practised, and from where fearful legends are wafted of massacres and practices all the more horrible because veiled in uncertainty; yet he had always returned to contradict the stories which the natives brought of his death, although he seldom brought his crew intact.
From years of intercourse, he seemed more at home with the savages than he would have been with honest citizens, all their habits and customs had become his own, to which he added other habits, acquired on the coast of Africa and South America, on the Solomons and South Sea Islands, and those far-away isles of Greece from where he originally had drifted.
The Government wanted him very badly, also the representatives of Exeter Hall; but with the guile of his nation he had hitherto evaded the traps they had set for him. "Niggeree," as the natives called him, was a name well known from one end of British New Guinea to the other, a name to send the nude and dusky warriors and their women flying into the bush, yet not one of them would bear testimony against him, what crimes he had committed remaining a secret between his own conscience and their discretion.
Was he thinking of these dark acts as he quietly sat on that water-cask, sending up the white puffs from his black clay pipe with that illuminated warm-toned atmosphere, for he smiled that convict smile which made him look so like a pirate, or was he concocting plans for the future? He was down in his luck at present, for this fever had paralyzed his energies, and he had to lie inactive for weeks, so that it had all been outcome, and no profit, and the exchequer was getting low. He had only a few bags of copra to give in exchange to Bowman for his next three months' supply, and he had not yet succeeded in winning over young Hector to join his fortune. As he suspected Hector to know where gold was to be found easily, in spite of the doubts cast by the colonial public on the nugget he was supposed to have discovered in New Guinea (for that doubt of the gold is not shared by a single person who has been in the land), he wanted to have him near him to find out why the little fellow again sought the shores, and for other reasons he wished him as a partner. Hector hitherto had parried his generous offer of a free passage and a share in his investments, yet to-day Niggeree felt hopeful that he would succeed in his persuasions.
Hector would be useful in many ways, for since his last scrape with the Queensland Government, when he, to be able to return, had been forced to become naturalized, he wanted a British subject to advise him, now that he was under the power of the commissioner, and Hector had a cool head, and might steer him safely out of many perils, and perhaps be the scapegoat if ever the necessity arose to have one.
Yesterday he was despondent and hopeless, any man might have wrung his nose with impunity, but to-day he felt the master, and smiled as he looked towards the canoes and boats; so, having finished his pipe, and the boat lying alongside with one of the South Sea Islanders at the oar, and the Malay holding the rope, he sprang to his feet, stretching himself full up, as he gave orders to those left aboard to get the bags ready for transferring, and then he dropped lightly into the dingey, taking the steering oar in his hand, while the others dipped theirs into the transparent deep blue.
A few strokes and they were absorbed, and lost in the intense sun-glare which had shortly before swallowed up that black spot, Joe.